Stay
by ournoisyhearts
Summary: And I'll be here in the morning if you say stay, if you say stay to me. Damon/Elena.


_Something must have made you say that_

_What did I do to make you say that to me?_

"_We have something."_

They did. He wasn't an idiot. He could feel that connection, that spark, deep inside of his inhuman soul, the undeniable feeling he had whenever he was near her. She had even said it herself; she may have loved Stefan, but a piece of her heart would always belong to Damon.

It killed him how much Elena looked like _her. _He couldn't even speak _her _name, much less speak it- _she _had used him, taken his heart and- almost literally- smashed it to pieces, never caring about him. Not _really,_ anyway. And then when he saw this girl in the cemetery, who looked so strikingly similar to _her,_ he had thought _she_ was back, for him, when _she _really wasn't. It was all a game to _her;_ a sick, twisted game that had left him gasping and panting and screaming inside, a game that had messed with his mind and taken the only shred of humanity he had left.

"_She knew you were here. She didn't care."_

_She_ was the reason he was forced to live this way, a monster in his own skin. _She_ was the reason he felt so strangely drawn to Elena. _She_ was the reason he had loathed his brother for so many years.

_She_ was the reason he was who he was.

Damon liked the way the heat from the fire blasted against his skin as he sat before it, stone still in the big red armchair. It crackled and blazed away, sparks jumping out once in awhile and landing on his shoes. The warmth made him feel better- _human_- but he would never admit it. He just let everyone go on thinking he was crazy, obsessed, heartbroken, whatever they wanted to think. Stefan would walk by once in awhile, sometimes even asking him if he was thirsty, to which he would respond with no movement, no sound whatsoever, just a few eye blinks as he stared at the flames before him.

_Fire._ He thought about it a lot- just throwing himself into the flames, letting his body ignite, letting the pain end. If he didn't starve to death (which he was pretty sure he might), he would just end it with the fire. It amazed him how something that made him feel so good could be a threat to him all together.

"I just want to talk to him," he could hear her voice wafting in from the main room of the boardinghouse. His keen sense of hearing could hear the pain and worry in her voice, and he turned his head slightly for the first time in days to get a better listen. She continued whispering to Stefan, asking if he had eaten, talked, moved at all. For a split second, Damon almost felt sorry that she was so worried about him, but he shook it off and turned back to the fire as he heard her footsteps entering. His gaze locked on the sparkling glow, as if he had never taken his eyes off it.

"Damon," she breathed, but it came out sounding more like a question, asking him, _what's going on with you?_

He could tell she was standing in the doorway, looking at the back of his head over the chair (vampire senses, remember). Her breathing was shallow, almost labored, as if she had run the whole way there, which she hadn't because he had heard her car pull into the driveway. Her soft footsteps crossed the rug as she knelt down beside him. He still refused to look at her, his eyes blackened from thirst, fixated on the fire. Her pale hand wrapped around his wrist, which was settled on the armrest, as she looked up at him.

"I know she hurt you, Damon," Elena began. He inwardly cringed at the thought of _her,_ but didn't move a muscle.

Elena couldn't see any signs of anger, so she continued. "She used you, manipulated you. You thought she loved you. But, Damon, she's been alive all this time, and has she ever even tried to contact you? No. It's because she's a _liar,_ Damon. And I know that you thought it was real, that all this time it's been real," she whispered, taking a deep breath, "but as we all know by now, it wasn't. I know what it's like…losing someone you love. It's tough," her tone was softer then, and she looked over towards the fire that Damon had seemed to intent on, "and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it will get easier. It won't. I still think about my parents every day. _Every day._ And it still hurts just as much. But you know what makes it a little better, Damon?" This was more of a rhetorical question, because she knew he wasn't going to answer.

"I know that there are so many other people here who care about me. There are so many people that care about _you,_ Damon. We want to help you through this," she finished.

He wanted so badly to believe her, this human girl, this look alike of _her._ There was just that little voice, though, in the back of his mind that kept telling him nobody cared about a **monster** like him.

He blinked once, twice, his eyes narrowed at the fire, pale fingers curling around the edge of the arm rest. The sound of her breath, the feel of her pulse where their arms touched, her very presence had him shaking, trembling in his immortal skin. She could feel his cold arm jolting around in her grip, and she carefully released it, standing up from her position beside him. Damon felt the cold air that replaced her presence beside him, the emptiness from where she had once been, and it was like something snapped in that moment. Something snapped, and his neck jerked around, and suddenly he was looking at her, looking at her like he'd never looked at anyone before.

"No," he croaked out, extending his hand to grab hers. "Don't go," he said slowly. His voice sounded strange, even to him, as the words fell from his lips. Elena's warm brown eyes melted into his dark ones, and he softly tugged on her arm, pulling her around to him. She could see the vulnerable expression on his face, the sadness in his eyes, and all she wanted to do was make it go away. She wanted the Damon she knew back.

"I won't," she assured him, her voice instantly filling him with a sense of hope. He pulled her down into his lap and wrapped his still trembling arms around her tiny waist, his fingers digging into the skin of her back. Elena placed a hand on the back of his head and dragged him forward until his torso fell against her, his head burying itself into her hair. She rubbed slow circles across his shoulders and buried her head into the side of his neck, her breath tickling his skin.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence, Damon felt his eyes flutter closed as he breathed in her comforting scent. "You look so much like her, it hurts."

The circles she was rubbing on his back stopped suddenly, and he thought she was going to pull away but instead she carefully ran her fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry," she murmured against him, softly brushing her hands through his tousled brown locks.

"It's not your fault," he replied softly, burying his face deeper into her own hair. She smelled like vanilla and strawberries, and the fact that he hadn't had anything to drink in more than a week didn't even seem to cross his mind. For once, he was just happy for someone's company. "You're nothing like her, though."

Elena smiled gently and lifted his head from her shoulder, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. "Thank you."

He cracked a small smile back, and it felt foreign on his face, the first time he'd smiled in what had seemed like too long. "Thank _you._"

His eyes were the color of midnight, and his skin looked raw. Elena could tell he was thirsty. "You're thirsty," she said simply, breaking the moment.

"Yes," Damon replied softly.

"I can ask Stefan-"

_And I'll be here in the morning_

_If you say stay, if you say stay to me_

She made a movement to detach herself from his lap but he tugged her back down, his eyes begging. "I just want to sit right now…please….stay…"

Elena took one glance at the helplessness in his eyes and sighed. "Okay," she murmured, lifting her thumb and rubbing it across his cool cheek. She trailed her fingertips across it, under his dark eyes. The skin there stiffened, and she could see the veins poking out from under the surface. His eyes continued to darken, but she left her hand there, looking at him. Suddenly he whipped his head away, staring at the wall as he waited for his eyes to return to normal before looking back at Elena.

"Sorry," he apologized meekly. "I can't…help it…"

You could ask her today, and she'd still not be exactly sure why she did it. It may have been the vulnerability in his eyes, or the little side of humanity he was showing, or maybe she just wasn't thinking right, but no matter what the reason, at that moment she took his face in her hands and pressed her warm lips to his.

His entire body froze up, but Elena kept her mouth firmly against his until he showed the tiniest bit of response, his nose twitching as he struggled to keep his composure. Elena pulled back (barely, mind you), her eyes closed, and murmured, "you won't hurt me" against his lips.

Her eyelashes brushed against his cheek as she ran her fingers under his chin, her eyes fluttering open. Damon met her soft gaze, the twinkle in his eyes questioning as she pressed her forehead against his.

"Are you sure I won't?" He breathed, her presence overwhelming him. She moved her arms around his neck as her nose rubbed against his, her warm breath mingling with his.

"Yes," she replied softly. Their lips met again, and this time Damon was the one to initiate it. They fit perfectly together, in some twisted way, like two puzzle pieces that had finally found a match. Her lips meshed against his, and in that moment, it didn't even matter that Stefan was only three rooms away. It didn't matter that Damon was a vampire, a thirsty one nonetheless, or that some screwed part of him still pictured Katherine. It didn't matter that it wasn't perfect.

She had stayed.

_Something must have made you so mad_

_What can I do to make you say come back to me?_

_**fin**_

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**That was way too fluffy for my liking, but I love vulnerable Damon and I needed to write something with DE. **

**Listen to 'Stay' by Safetysuit while you're reading this (if you can). It really adds to the mood.**

**Drop a review please (:**


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